Weapon skill
Weapon skill represents your proficiency with a particular Weapon. The basic formula for your maximum weapon skill at a particular level is (5 * level). The rate at which you gain them depends on your Intellect score and the speed of the weapon. It's typically better to use a fast weapon to train up your skills. = Effects of Weapon Skill = For each point that your weapon skill exceeds your opponent's defense, you gain the following: * Your chance to miss decreases by 0.04%. * Your chance to score a critical hit increases by 0.04%. * Your opponent's chance to block your attack decreases by 0.04%. * Your opponent's chance to parry your attack decreases by 0.04%. * Your opponent's chance to dodge your attack decreases by 0.04%. Effectively, you can consider weapon skill to be the inverse of the defense skill. Additionally the 2.0.1 patch notes say * The player will gain 0.1% to their critical strike rating per weapon skill against monsters above their level. Presumably this is only for Weapon Skill over your level's natural cap (Level * 5). It is not known if you also get the additional 0.04% crit chance per additional +skill. Weapon skills are maxed in pvp combat. While this means leveling a weapon for pvp is unimportant, racial attribrutes, talents, and weapons with +skill still affect pvp hit/crit rating. Most players, however, see the +skill in pvp as useless; you will still see many orcs with the high warlord sword. Glancing blows Against mobs with defense roughly equal to or higher than your attack rating (i.e. your weapon skill), you will have a chance to land a glancing blow instead of a normal hit. A glancing blow only occurs on white melee damage, cannot crit, and does less damage than a normal blow. If the attacker's weapon skill is less than his level * 5, the damage reduction will be proportional to the difference between the attacker's weapon skill and the target's defense. Weapon skill above your level * 5, as from gear or racial bonuses, affects neither the damage reduction nor the chances of landing a glancing blow. Glancing Blow chance Players have a chance to perform a glancing blow against mobs equal to 10% plus 2% per point of difference between attack rating and defense. Non-melee classes level 30 and higher have a 60% chance to glancing blow. Non-melee classes from level 11 to level 29 have a (level - 10) * 3% chance of a glancing blow. As noted above, your maximum attack rating in this formula is 5 times your level. A mob's Defense skill is equal to its level * 5. This formula means that, for a level 60 player with fully trained weapon skill, 30% of all white-damage melee attacks will be Glancing Blows against level 62 mobs, and 40% of all white-damage melee attacks will be Glancing Blows against level 63 mobs. The presence of your weapon skill in this formula, rather than just your level, explains why training up a newly-acquired weapon skill against mobs close to your own level results in many, many Glancing Blows at first. Glancing Blow damage reduction The damage of a glancing blow is complicated. It starts by calculating the difference between the target's Defense and the attacker's attack rating, where the attack rating is capped at the attacker's level * 5 (just as it is for determining the chance of a glancing blow occurring). This is then used to calculate a minimum and maximum damage factor. The actual damage factor is then randomized between these two values. The low value starts at 1.3 - 0.05 * rating difference. If the attacker is a caster then this is reduced by 0.7 more. The smaller value of this and 0.6 is kept as the low end. If the attacker is a melee class then instead the lower value of 0.91 and (1.3 - 0.05 * rating difference) is used for the low. Regardless, the low end will not go below 0.01. The high end of the range starts at 1.2 - 0.03 * rating difference. Casters are reduced a further 0.3. The high value regardless of class is kept between 0.2 and 0.99. The average reduction from a glancing blow is therefore (high + low) / 2 using the formulae above. This gives a level 60 player, with a weapon skill of 300 or more, a 15% damage reduction with all Glancing Blows against level 62 mobs, and a 35% damage reduction with all Glancing Blows against level 63 mobs. As of 2.0.1, the player's weapon skill is capped at level * 5 in the damage reduction formula, just like it is in the formula for determining the chance of a glancing blow. (Before 2.0.1, glancing blows landed against a level 63 NPC by a level 60 player with +10 Weapon Skill would do nearly as much damage as the player's ordinary hits did.) Glancing Blow Implications The fact that 40% of all white-damage melee attacks made against a Boss Mob will be Glancing Blows, no matter what you do, has serious implications when choosing how much +crit% gear to use. Due to the table-based nature of WoW's attack resolution system, Glancing Blows take precedence over critical hits. If your combined miss, dodge, parry, block, glancing blow, and crit chance against a mob is 100% or higher, you will never see a normal white-damage hit made against that mob (all your hits will be either glancing blows or critical hits). If it exceeds 100%, it is your critical hit chance that gets "pushed off the end" of the table. Any +crit% gear added past this point will not improve your critical hit chance with white-damage melee attacks at all. This is sometimes called the "Crit cap" (see below). Instant attacks, and "yellow damage" on-next-swing attacks such as Heroic Strike, do not produce Glancing Blows. For these attacks, added +crit% gear beyond the "Crit cap" described above will improve your critical hit chance. Ranged weapon attacks (Bows, guns and crossbows) do not have glancing blows at all, thus weapon skill does not affect this for them. It works the same for all classes that can use ranged weapons (hunters, rogues and warriors). Crit Cap With no +skill/+hit gear on, attacks made by a dual wielder against a level 63 mob will have the following table from the front: Result Chance Miss 24.6% Dodge 5.6% Parry 5.6% Glancing Blow 40.0% Block 5.6% Combined hit + crit 18.6% Attacks from the back are thought by many to prevent blocks and parries, but in fact they still occur against mobs but appear as MISS results instead. Players cannot dodge, parry, or block attacks from the back. Mobs that dodge display as a miss. Mobs that parry display miss but still get the haste increase provided by a parry. Blocks actually becomes a real miss, meaning all of the damage is avoided (instead of some of it getting through and only some being blocked). It is not as bad if the same character attacks the same mob with a two-handed weapon: Result Chance Miss 5.6% Dodge 5.6% Parry 5.6% Glancing Blow 40.0% Block 5.6% Combined hit + crit 37.6% This is a 37.6% + your +hit crit cap. All these crit caps can be increased by increasing your +skill (.16% increase per point from the front) and by +hit (1% increase per point). Dual wield full raid buffs (including mongoose and elemental sharpening stones) example from the front: +0 hit +50% crit: 5.6% dodge, 5.6% parry, 24.6% miss, 5.6% block, 40% glancing blow, 18.6% crit = 31.4% of your crit rate did nothing +6 hit +40% crit: 5.6% dodge, 5.6% parry, 5.6% block, 18.6% miss, 40% glancing blow, 24.6% crit = 15.4% of your crit rate did nothing +15 hit +33% crit: 5.6% dodge, 5.6% parry, 5.6% block, 9.6% miss, 40% glancing blow, 33% crit, 0.8% hit = no +crit was wasted in this example Dual wield full raid buffs (including mongoose and elemental sharpening stones) example from the back: +0 hit +50% crit: 5.6% dodge, 24.6% miss, 40% glancing blow, 29.8% crit = 20.2% of your crit rate did nothing +6 hit +40% crit: 5.6% dodge, 18.6% miss, 40% glancing blow, 35.8% crit = 4.2% of your crit rate did nothing +15hit +33% crit: 5.6% dodge, 9.6% miss, 40% glancing blow, 33% crit, 12% hit = no +crit was wasted in this example DPS Implications +hit becomes much more important than previously believed due to the crit cap. The following shows the difference in white damage between various stat options Assuming 25.2% crit and 0% hit its 5.6% block for say 80% damage (depends on a lot of things) 18.6% crit for 200% damage (impale doesnt work!) 40% glancing blow for 70% damage 35.8% no damage per swing its an average of .056 * .8 + .186 *2 + .4 * .7 = 69.68% of your damage per swing Assuming you have +5 hit, the numbers become... 5.6% block for say 80% damage (depends on a lot of things) 23.6% crit for 200% damage (impale doesnt work!) 40% glancing blow for 70% damage 30.8% no damage so per swing its an average of .056 * .8 + .236 *2 + .4 * .7 = 79.68% of your damage per swing = Itemization = Itemization for +weapon skill is extremely lacking. The following is a complete list of all items with +weapon skill 2.0.1 Skill Rating conversion The Weapon Skill figures in the above item chart are in the old pre-2.0 system, where +weapon skill was given to items directly. Under the new Combat Ratings System, the above items now all have a Weapon Skill Rating bonus instead. At level 60, every 2.5 points of Weapon Skill Rating translates into 1 point of actual Weapon Skill. Unfortunately, during the conversion to the new Rating system, not all of the above items had their Weapon Skill bonuses multiplied by the full 2.5 to arrive at their new Weapon Skill Rating bonus. The Sceptre of Smiting, for example, now only gives a Mace Skill Rating bonus of +4 -- an exact 2.5-fold conversion factor would have given it a Mace Skill Rating bonus of +5. = Talents = Rogues: *Weapon Expertise talent increases skill with Swords, Fists and Daggers by 3 (rank 1) or by 5 (rank 2) *Mace Specialization talent increases skill with Maces by 1 per talent point spent (max 5). = Racial Bonuses = *Humans: +5 sword skill, +5 mace skill, +5 two-handed sword skill, +5 two-handed mace skill *Dwarves: +5 gun skill *Orcs: +5 axe skill, +5 two-handed axe skill *Trolls: +5 bow skill, +5 throwing weapon skill = Sources = 2.0.1 Patch Notes Slant's ToHit FAQ Zoroaster's Crit, Hit, Weapon Skill and damage formulas Category:Formulas and Game Mechanics